


A Sort of Drought

by yaycoffee



Series: LWS Trope Bingo [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Kissing, Kissing in the Rain, M/M, Resolved Romantic Tension, Romance, Schmoop, Smooching, Snogging, Unresolved Romantic Tension, and by data, he means john's lips, lws trope bingo, sherlock needs data
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-15 02:40:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2212674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaycoffee/pseuds/yaycoffee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock doesn't see how kissing in the rain could be anything other than unpleasant.  But he's not a very smart genius.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sort of Drought

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [letswritesherlock Trope Bingo Challenge](http://letswritesherlock.tumblr.com/post/92844722125/challenge-15-trope-bingo-how-does-one-play). (Card 1, prompt: kissing in the rain)
> 
> I am organizing all the stories I write for the LWS Challenge into a series. The stories will be one-off pieces with unconnected timelines and plotlines.
> 
> This story makes five-in-a-row: BINGO!!

Sherlock leaves his sodden coat on the hook downstairs before climbing up to the flat. His hair is dripping, his toes are rubbing together uncomfortably inside his wet shoes, and the case that should have been a seven turned out to be a two. Well, one and a half. Dull. Disappointing. Solved.

John turns his head from the television when he enters, staring at him with a poor attempt at concealing a smile. “Oh, is it raining?” he asks, entirely smug.

Sherlock ignores him as a large droplet of rainwater falls from his hair onto the carpet with a soft _plop_.

“I told you to bring an umbrella.”

“Shut up.”

John turns back to his programme, and Sherlock heads to his room. He towels off his hair and changes into his pajama bottoms and a tee shirt. He won’t be going out again today. Or tomorrow. Or possibly Thursday. The world is boring, and boring is bad enough. _Wet_ and boring is entirely unacceptable.

He pads back into the living room and falls to the sofa, back to the world. John is still watching the television. Sherlock sighs. John does not ask him anything. John doesn’t even make him a cup of tea. Sherlock is cold and frustrated and _done with everything_. This is when there is always tea. There is no tea. He stares at the back of the sofa for five minutes, and still John does not move. He sighs again, turning to see what is so _riveting_ about what John is watching.

It’s a film. American. Melodramatic romance bordering on emotionally manipulative. Sherlock would know. Textbook stuff, that.

On the screen, the protagonists are in a boat. It begins to rain. It’s apparently raining everywhere now—even in the works of fiction. God, Sherlock hates everything. The rain plasters the man’s shirt to his chest, does not make the woman’s makeup run. Good God, are normal people actually entertained by this drivel? Well, John would know.

“John,” Sherlock says.

“Sh,” John says.

“Do people—”

John cuts him off. “This is the best part Sherlock. Shut it.”

Sherlock closes his mouth with an audible clicking of his jaw.

Well, now he must see what the _best part_ is. The couple argues. Emotionally wrought? A misunderstanding. Cleared up with one sentence. Sherlock snorts.

“Sh!”

And, then, the couple is kissing, water soaking them through—making them only more attractive. Every drip, every rivulet, aesthetically designed for optimal romantic allusion. Misty atmosphere, hazy focus, open mouths. And inside, the couple makes love without squelching or slipping or anything that remotely resembles anything factual at all. Sex is boring enough. And though the entertainment industry has made millions on sensationalising it, _this_ is the most boring sex he’s witnessed on screen—entirely too slow and too misty, every expression entirely overplayed. God, the acting is _terrible_. John is rapt.

Why?

The scene moves on to the next, and so Sherlock asks, “What the _hell_ are you watching?”

“ _The Notebook_.”

“Romance. Predictable. Manipulative. No wonder you go in for this sort of thing.”

“Shut up, Sherlock. I happen to like this movie.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It’s nice. And, I’m missing it. Strop quieter, please.”

“Fine.” And Sherlock does. He lets the film play out, stays put as John goes up to his room for bed. He does not move from the sofa. Hands steepled at his chin, he finds that he’s still wondering about John, about his fascination with this particular abomination of cinematic romance, _hell_ —on the entire legacy of storytelling. He wonders why John thinks that the rainy kissing was the best part? Surely, the overplayed emotional moment at the end would be better? Why _that_ scene? Sherlock thinks about it until the world goes dark.

When he opens his eyes again, it is to the sounds and smells of John making breakfast in the kitchen. Sherlock has to know. So he goes to where John is to ask him, “Why though? Why is that the best scene?”

“What?” John asks, voice sleep-rough, still shaking the grogginess of the morning off as he waits for the tea to steep.

“That utter pap from yesterday evening! You shushed me. Said the rain thing was the best part. Was it the sex?”

John sighs, bunging his teabag in the sink and pouring milk into his cup. He pinches the bridge of his nose. Exasperated. Sherlock waits.

“It’s romantic,” John says.

“What, the sex?”

“No. Well—yes, but. The _kiss_. In the rain. It meant something important. And besides…” John pauses to smile a bit (to himself?). “Kisses in the rain always seem a bit more—something.”

“Ah yes, the eloquence of a writer. Do go on.”

“Shut up. I don’t know. There’s something about it—watching it, _doing_ it—that just seems… _more_.”

Sherlock hums. This requires some consideration. He doesn’t even ask himself why. It just _does_. He turns on his heel, taking his tea with him to the sofa.   As he sips, without particularly intending to, he pictures John’s lips around the rim of his cup, the way the tea lingered there, on the fullest part of his bottom one, until John licked it away.   Interesting. He presses his fingertips together and _thinks_.

Data: John likes to be kissed in the rain.

Conclusion: He must kiss John in the rain.

Question: Why would Sherlock feel the need to kiss John in the rain simply because he now knows that John likes it?

Data: He cannot stop picturing John’s lips—the way they wrap around the rim of his teacup, the way they part with his laughter, the way they press together in annoyance, the way they go hard and firm when he’s ready to throw a punch or when he’s drawn his gun. The shape they make when he says Sherlock’s name—sometimes soft with affection, other times turned up with a joke, often set firm in annoyance.

Data: Sherlock wonders what those lips would feel like against his own.

Conclusion: Uncertain.

He closes his eyes and calls up the memory of the film—everything watery, grey, soft. An open mouth, water dripping inside before another mouth covers it. Hands in wet hair, rucking up wet clothing, sliding over wet skin. Objectively, he does not understand how this could be anything other than cold and slippery and uncomfortable.

He rewinds the film in his mind. Back to start.

Everything watery, grey, soft. _John’s_ open mouth, shirt clinging to his shoulders, to his chest. Water dripping from his fringe. Sherlock covers John’s mouth with his own. At the image, something like heat trickles down Sherlock’s spinal column. He slows the film down. Mouth on mouth, appealing. Wet, _also_ appealing. But—cold, slippery. Distracting

The theoretical is getting him nowhere. He needs the practical. He needs _data_. The only logical course of action is to perform a trial. Luckily, they live in London and are out in the weather rather a lot.

The rain is coming down in buckets while John is working at the surgery. Should Sherlock interrupt for a case? Surely, something from the website would do—a prop, an exposition, an excuse. He scrolls through until he finds something sufficient. He sends a text informing Mrs Haggard that he would be by later that day to discuss the circumstances of her missing nephew.

Of course, the nephew isn’t missing at all. Not in the least. Three minutes on his phone’s browser show that he is on a cruise in the Caribbean with his mistress. But John is much more likely to abandon an itinerary of dripping noses and skin conditions if there is a _human_ element. Couldn’t get much more human than a missing persons case.

It works. John leaves the surgery without much coaxing at all, and Sherlock leads him through a day of friend-and-family interviews, lead tracking, and internet searches; Sherlock even feigns a thinking spell on the sofa while John brings him a sandwich. He has an _epiphany_. He shoves John’s arms into his jacket and hails a taxi. From behind her desk, the travel agent confirms—the nephew is (obviously) listed on the manifest of a cruise ship currently docked at Cozumel.

The drizzle is barely enough to make John swipe at his face as they leave from informing Mrs Haggard of the disreputable whereabouts of her nephew. Conditions aren’t optimal. Perhaps the rain will pick up on the way home. Sherlock suggests walking.

The rain does not pick up, but the mist and drizzle have slowly darkened John’s hair, created puddles enough to soak the hems of his jeans. Sherlock bites his lip, wondering. If he were to run the trial now, would the results be sound?

“What?” John asks.

Sherlock realises he’s stopped in the middle of the pavement. He blinks water from his lashes. Sherlock steps in close to John without saying anything.

“Sherlock?” John asks, now looking concerned.

Sherlock can feel John’s breath, warm on his face. It makes him feel dizzy when he inhales.

“Is everything all right?”

There is water in his eyes, causing him to blink. He notices that his own heart rate has risen exponentially, his own breath catching at the back of his throat. “Yes,” he says, stepping back, clearing his throat. “Fine.”

John’s lips bunch up in one corner as his eyebrows raise. “Okay,” he says.

The moment is totally lost. Sherlock supposes he will have to try again later.

For two hours, Sherlock pretends to look at things under the microscope while he listens for any sign that the rain will pick up. John reads in his armchair.

After a while, John says, “God, I’m starving. Dinner?”

Sherlock thinks about it. He’s not particularly hungry, but perhaps if he and John go out, the rain will pick up enough to try again. “All right,” Sherlock says.

They eat at Angelo’s. It’s nice. Really nice, actually. They each have a glass of wine, the conversation is easy and comfortable, and Sherlock barely even notices when he takes his last bite of manicotti. John looks pleasing in this lighting, all warm lines around his eyes and pink lips and inviting day-old stubble. He supposes he’s been caught staring when John cocks his head a bit. He doesn’t say anything—only smiles at him, perhaps a little shy, perhaps a little knowing. Sherlock feels his face heat, and he knows it is (almost) nothing to do with the wine. He distracts himself by putting some notes on the table and winding his scarf around his neck.

Outside, John walks close enough that their hands brush. He looks up at Sherlock with an intensity that Sherlock rather enjoys, and neither one of them can seem to stop smiling entirely.   The clouds overhead swirl in the wind, the air thick with moisture, but the rain refuses to fall. Sherlock wonders now if it really matters.

When John stops in front of the steps of 221, there is a moment. They are very close, and John is looking at him, eyes moving from his eyes to his mouth, and Sherlock thinks— _perhaps_? He leans in, feeling John’s body heat, smelling his smell, heart hammering inside his chest.

But the rain is not falling. He can’t ruin this. It really should be perfect. A car drives by, tyres splashing loudly in a puddle. It is the distraction Sherlock needs to pull away and start up the steps. If John looks a little disappointed when he unlocks the door, Sherlock pretends not to notice. When they are back in their flat, John takes his laptop with him to his bedroom, and Sherlock falls into his own bed feeling entirely wrung out.

Two days later, they are at Curry’s where John is all but frog-marching Sherlock to the computers section. Sherlock explained that he didn’t _intend_ to melt John’s laptop power cable—it just… happened.

John’s lips are in a tight line. “Intent or no— _you_ are going to take the time out of your busy day of melting eyelids or whatever it is to do this. _You_ will find the cable and ask questions to frustrating sales associates about it if need be. And _you_ will queue up to pay. And you _are_ paying.”

“Then why are you even here? I’m perfectly capable of managing this arduous task all on my own.”

“To make sure you actually do it.” Under his breath he swears, muttering something about “last time.”

Sherlock sighs with an appropriate amount of melodrama. “Fine.”

“Fine,” John says with a curt nod.

It is wholly unpleasant. While John’s laptop is not in the least a complicated or rare machine—it is the most popular variety, one that this store said both online and over the phone that they did, in fact, carry accessories for—the cable is nowhere in the section with all of the other computer cables. When he finally finds a sales associate to speak with, he knows even less about computers even than Mrs Hudson. They go to the shop computer that calls up the parts inventory to find a serial number. They go back to the display. The associate fumbles through each pegged line of them, dropping several on the floor in the process. The associate calls over another to ask about it. The other associate says that they always have this model, and the computer-to-display process begins afresh.

With hands clasped loosely behind his back as he calmly looks on, John doesn’t look bothered in the least. In fact, Sherlock rather suspects that he is enjoying this. For that reason alone, Sherlock refrains from an out-loud deduction of internet porn addiction in the first associate and irritable bowel in the second. He does his best to appear patient and collected, though what he wants is to storm the storeroom himself, find the bloody cable, and _leave_.

After nearly half an hour, they locate the cable. Sherlock sighs with relief. This ordeal is finally, _finally_ coming to an end. And, he’s hungry. It is lunchtime on a Saturday, and the shop is filled with other customers. When he steps up to it, Sherlock groans at the state of the queue. There are fourteen people before them and only one working till. His stomach growls audibly.

John pats him on the back. “Looks like you have this under control. I’m off to the pasty shop for a bite. I’m _starving_. You’ll find me when you’re done, yeah?”

Sherlock glares at him. John’s smile comes with a wink as he exits the shop.

It takes another twenty minutes to get through the queue, and when he finally steps out onto the pavement into the sea of shoppers and tourists, it feels something like freedom. The sun is shining weakly overhead and the breeze is just enough to stir the curls at his fringe as he walks to meet John. He gets a text on the way. From John. _Lestrade texted. We’ve got a case. On my way to the scene. Meet there._ He gives the address.

Sherlock’s stomach growls, but he ignores it as he hails a taxi.

The case is a five. Housebreaking-turned-stabbing, missing priceless artwork. It was the soon-to-be ex wife’s lover. The couple had nearly boarded a flight to Budapest when he and John got them. After a bit of a scuffle in the security line at Gatwick, John has the man pinned on the floor. Sherlock has the woman by the arm as Lestrade and (incompetent) company finally catch up.

It is growing dark as they step on from the platform to the train that will take them back to the city. There are two open seats, but the carriage is crowded. They have to sit close enough that their bodies are touching at the thighs. They sit in an easy silence, and then Sherlock’s stomach growls.

“Hungry?” John asks.

Sherlock only looks at him. Why is he smiling?

“It’ll be nearly half an hour before we make it back to the city,” John muses.

Sherlock presses his lips together. He knows this. He has, of course, endured much worse than day-old hunger pangs, but it doesn’t stop him being uncomfortable. “I know,” Sherlock says, turning his gaze to a straight-ahead middle distance.

“Mm,” John hums. “Good think I thought to pick up an extra then,” he says with a smirk, pulling a folded over paper sack from the inside pocket of his jacket. He holds it out, fingers brushing against his as Sherlock takes it.

Sherlock opens the sack to the heavenly smell of beef and onions, potato and grease. He takes a careful bite, as the crumbing thing had apparently not made it through John’s airport scuffle quite as well as John did. Even gone cold and smashed nearly flat, it is delicious. His stomach settles.

He looks to John who is looking back at him with an odd sort of half-smile. He tightens his lips, the lines around his eyes crinkling; his arm twitches.

Sherlock raises an eyebrow and takes another bite. When he lowers the pasty back to his lap as he chews, John laughs.

“What?”

John’s arm twitches again before his hand comes up. “It’s—” John stops himself and hesitates, hand paused halfway to Sherlock’s face. John seems to have a little think, and then, John’s thumb is swiping just below his lower lip. It is startling—but warm, nice. “You had a bit of crust just there.”

Sherlock feels himself blink, his face heat. (Is he blushing? Oh _God_ , he is.) “Thank you,” he says.

They take a taxi from Victoria station, and Sherlock catches himself staring at John in the setting light angling through the window. It turns his eyes a deep blue and lights on the highest points of his cheeks. When John looks up, Sherlock turns away, feeling that heat come into his cheeks again. He clears his throat.

On the way up the steps to the flat, John reaches into Sherlock’s coat pocket for the keys, leaning in close. Sherlock feels his body lean forward as well, and everything is warm and a little hazy, and John’s mouth is slightly open, soft. The sky is clear above them, the air crisp. John’s mouth is inches away from his, getting closer, and he doesn’t know if it’s him or John or both of them moving. John’s breath is settling hot on his lips when Mrs Hudson opens the door. John jumps back as if burned, and Sherlock stands straight, eyeing the clear sky above with something like disdain.

“Oh, hello dears,” She says, looking down, fitting the little cloth envelope that holds her coupons into the front pocket of her handbag. “I’m just off to the shops. Do you need anything?”

John clears his throat. “No—er.” He seems flustered. “No. Thank you, Mrs Hudson.”

“You sure? Tesco is running a special on HobNobs, and I know they’re your favourite.”

“Okay,” John says, and he gives her a tight-lipped smile. “Thank you. HobNobs sound lovely.”

She pats him on the arm as she leaves, and whatever moment they’d had before has totally evaporated.

Nearly a week later, Sherlock wakes in the middle of the night to the sound of his text alert. From John. Specific location in Regent’s Park. _Hurry_. No further information.

In a panic, Sherlock throws on his clothes as fast as he can, heart nearly bursting in his chest. Why is John out at this hour? Why wasn’t Sherlock with him? Has he been abducted, attacked? On the pavement, he runs.

The park is dark, but Sherlock knows his way. His eyes miss nothing, gathering data in case he needs it later. And after what seems like an age, he finds John. John, who is not injured but is simply sitting on a bench as though he were waiting.

Sherlock is panting when he reaches him. “Are you all right?” he asks, short, clipped, body still buzzing with panic.

John smiles as he stands. A drip of water falls from the tip of his nose down to his chin. Has it been raining this whole time? Sherlock hadn’t noticed.

“I’m fine,” John says. “I didn’t mean to panic you. Sorry.” His hair is plastered to his forehead, his shirt stuck to his chest, water running over the contours of his face—around his ear, in the lines around his eyes, over the bow of his lip, dripping from the fullest part of the bottom one.

“John?” Sherlock asks. “What—”

But Sherlock doesn’t finish his question. John’s mouth is on his. The rain is cold on his face, slipping underneath his collar, soaking his hair, but John’s mouth is _on his mouth_. Sherlock gasps. John smiles against his skin and kisses him again.

Sherlock’s toes prickle with a heat that travels up the line of his shins, around his thighs, to the very base of his spine, and now his heart is pounding for an entirely different reason. He opens his mouth over John’s upper lip, sucking, licking, stepping in close enough to press their fronts together. His hands are in John’s dripping hair, his thumbs sliding over John’s jaw, slick with rain and rough with stubble and so warm it feels like the very best kind of burning. John kisses him and kisses him again, and Sherlock does the same. It is warm, and it is _wet_ , and it is glorious.

John’s breath heats his cheeks, tickles his ear, makes him shiver, and Sherlock’s hands go under John’s shirt to find the skin at the small of his back; it is like fire on his fingertips. The moan that comes from John’s throat reminds Sherlock of the symphony as it tunes and readies for a performance, all promise of the beauty that’s coming.

Sherlock has water in his eyes and a little in his nose and around his mouth where it is sealed against John’s, and he is anything _but_ cold or uncomfortable. John’s hands are on his neck, in his hair, at his back, at his waist, and every single place they go, sliding easily, they leave an aching sort of heat in their wake.

John takes Sherlock’s hand and leads him back to Baker Street, and when they make it inside the door, John pushes him, wet and squelching against the wall as he closes the door. This kiss is louder, wetter even than the ones outside, and John smells of green things and rain.

“The best part,” John says between burning kisses down Sherlock’s throat, back up to his mouth. “About kissing in the rain?” Another kiss, light on his temple, firmer high on his cheekbone, tongue hot against the cool wet line where his hairline meets his ear. He presses the entire length of his sodden body against Sherlock’s, and Sherlock’s vision swims.

Sherlock can only hum. There are no words.

John’s hands push Sherlock’s coat off. “Getting dry,” John says, smiling, winking, _leaving_. He goes up the stairs two at a time. Sherlock’s fingers come to touch his own lips as he blinks the rain from his eyes. He smiles. He follows.

~End~

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to [youngdarling](http://archiveofourown.org/users/youngdarling) for giving this a good looking over and for being just a wonderful beta and encourager! :-)))


End file.
